It was close to midnight when I passed through the hallway. Lightly, I stepped; careful not to disturb the deafening silence. I smelled something. It stank. I thought it came from the walls, but it was too dark to see. I rubbed a finger along it and it was covered in a cold substance. I raised my finger to my face and examined it. It was covered in a goo of denial. I understood. The entire walls and ceilings were covered in a thick layer of denial. That’s why it stank.
I continued and reached the end of the hallway. And a chamber appeared before me. Through its portal, I passed.
The dark was deceiving, but he was noticed eventually. Amid the filth a corpse appeared, standing completely motionless and silent in the middle of the room, on its own two feet. No. It was not a corpse. Not yet. It was you! And you were holding the knife that would soon become the catalyst.
You slowly raised your left hand out towards me. It seemed to me like some sort of gesture. Then you put the knife to the arm, hovering just millimeters from the awaiting skin. The smile you gave me was what I remember most vividly. It was horrid. Like a madman’s. You had changed so much since we first met in that desert, in that strange country. At that time, you seemed so full of life. Of ambition. And I always fell into immersion with the dreams you told me. Now, there was not much left of you. Your soul was withered and your eyes were bleak. I could sense that your death was imminent now.
I cried out to you with words of discouragement. There was still a part of my old friend to be salvaged. I wanted to believe that. I tried to warn you. But no connection between us was established.
Then you pushed the tip of the blade through the thin organic layer and started carving. The blood started gushing out immediately. You went deep.
I yelled out to you.
- “ Stop this madness immediately! Do you not see what you are becoming?”.
Without halting you replied.
- “ Transformation begins in suffering. And I’m not afraid to depart from bliss.”
- “ But please, do you not see how the blood flows? Do you not feel the pain as the skin separates from the blade?”
- “ I feel its warmth as it trickles down my arm. I see the beauty of the crimson color. It is nothing short of grace.”
I realized that you were not just hacking away at random, but that you were carefully etching in symbols in your forearm. It was letters. The first letter, I noticed, was a “P”. You were using the blade as a pencil. You were using your own skin to write into.
I started panicking and cried out to you;
- “ You keep flying higher. Exceeding yourself towards that which none dare approach. What do you hope to discover yet?”
- “There is still so much for me to become. Why halt and embrace inertia when I can still reach such grand heights? I will find myself a star and settle down there. First then, shall I be content. Not before.”
- “ You will arrive and you will discover that there is nothing there. It will be barren. You will stand alone and it will be cold. You thirst for life but drink only poison!”
And then you finished the next letter while staring me down. It was an “E”.
- “ There is still so much of me to overcome. Still, so much of my past self that I must rise above. It is first when I have rid myself of all the pieces that once made me weak that I can transcend and become sublime. I’m still so small compared to what I will be when I’m finished. I’m still blind to what lies beyond the parallel.”
- “ Fool, it will be to your detriment. Look at what’s left of you. If you do not halt then this last piece of you will decay too. Just like the rest. You have already lost the ability to reason! How much more must you lose before you realize, that what you aspire to will cost too much of yourself?”
You finished the next letter. An “R”.
-“ I am but a character. My harm exists only within story.”
- “ You are drowning in your own deceit as you speak. Look at the blood and acknowledge your dissonance in this instant.”
- “ It is so warm and thick. Listen to it. Hear its cries. It wants out. It desires to be seen, to be tasted by them. How else could they possibly understand?”
- “ And by what estimates have you determined this feasible?”
- “ I must venture out beyond where story ends. To leave this bubble of bliss, from where blindness emerges.”
- “ Please, don’t go, for I will not be able to follow you there. I will only become a hindrance to you.
You claim that you bleed for their sake, yet not a single one of them will ever come to understand.”
- “ The wounds will sing, and you will all be impressed by my beauty, and you will see that all this was worth it in the end, once the transformation has been completed.”
You suddenly began cutting away in a frenzy. You rapidly cut many new letters, but it happened so quickly that I didn’t notice what they were. I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaped at you and reached out to take hold of your hand that held the knife. But I miscalculated the angle of approach. Or maybe you turned the knife. But I would never know if that was on purpose or accident. The palm of my hand made contact with the tip of the blade. And I had such momentum that the blade penetrated the tissue and went through to the other side. My hand slid all the way down the cold steel until it landed on your hand.
The pain was immediate and paralyzing. I would have screamed if you hadn’t covered my mouth with your left hand.
- “Shh, don’t scream or they will hear you. They want you to suffer but hate you if they hear you cry about it.”
I turned away from your gaze and looked at your wounded arm. And the sight that met me, made me want to scream more than the pain I felt. I finally saw what you had written with the knife. The letters on your forearm had come together to form a single word. In deep red carvings stood:
“Perfection.”
I looked back at you with deep worry. I could tell that you noticed my worry, for the tone in your voice had changed when you said;
- “Don’t you worry. If I still serve a purpose, that means that my death will not be allowed. If I can die, however, then that means I am expendable.
It is my intent to find out.”
You let your hand slip from my mouth. And I gasped for breath while exclaiming;
- “Your unwavering pursuit of excellence will lead you outside the boundaries of reason! Then, you will come to lose what I like most about you. Your warmth, your softness, your smile, your laugh, and even your love. That will all be forfeited if you continue like this. Don’t you see? You are already becoming a stranger. To me and to yourself! Only one option still stands before you now. You must learn to listen to your heart again like you did in the past when we first met. Just try and listen. Can you not hear it? It’s talking to you. Or have you already become deaf to its begging?”
I put my other hand on your chest and found the place where I could feel it.
-” Yes, it’s still there. I can feel it beating. It still beats like it did in that desert. Just listen to it. It wants you to take my hand, to go outside and run along the beach in the sunset. We will feel the warm sand between our toes, and the salty air breezing through our hair. Can you not picture it? Can you really tell me that you don’t want to feel it? Will you not leave your aspiration and go there? Just tell me you will and I will follow.”
Your reply came quickly.
- “Exactly, look at the silliness with which the heart speaks. It’s all so trivial! It want me to be content with warm sand? With a salty breeze? And what exactly can I do with that? It is worthless. How could warm sand possibly satisfy me when I could have the stars in the sky? The mind should ignore the heart for it is only these distractions that come from it! Don’t you see? The heart only needs comfort and love to be satisfied. It cannot want greatness. For it does not need it. It is too soft for that. If greatness is the aim, then one must rely on something stronger than the heart entirely. Then, a determined and tough mind must be cultivated in order to get there. That’s the undisputed truth of it. The mind exists for the purpose of suppressing the desires of the heart!..”
On the last word you suddenly coughed terribly. And out with it came blood. You were just as shocked as I was. It was still leaking down your chin when I told you;
- “You can no longer keep ignoring this. It has become so apparent to everyone now; how deep you are into grief. If you will just come with me now then you will no longer have to live in denial of this. Why do you feel the need to satisfy them when they do not even care about you?
Please, will you not forgive yourself for all that you still stand to gain? Just follow, and I will guide you to your panacea.”
You hesitated for a long time. But I did not release you with my eyes for a single moment. And finally, you nodded slightly. It had finally dawned upon you everything you were putting at stake. That if you continued to strain yourself like this you might just end up with neither stars nor sand…
I pulled your hand and you took the first steps accordingly, but very hesitantly. You were so light, I could barely even feel that I was pulling anything. It was almost as if you were floating.
We made our way out of the room and slowly passed through the dark hallway. One could already begin to hear the sound of crashing waves on distant shores, smell the scent of salt and seaweed, and hear the mating calls of the exotic birds that were flying there.
I was overjoyed and was about to tell you this in excitement. But in that moment you tripped behind me and fell to the ground without a sound. I turned quickly in fright and dropped down to your weak body. I reached out and took your face in my hands. It had turned completely pale now, and your eyes were almost shut. I looked back into the room and saw the thick trail of blood that had followed us out. I started to shiver. I looked back at you and noticed that your lips were moving slightly. You were saying something. But it was such a faint whisper that I had to lay my ear right to your lips. And then I heard it.
- “It was all a… dream.”
- “Yes.” I said. “Just a dream.”
And that was the last thing you said. And you said it with a smile.
My tears fell heavy on your worn-out body and diluted the blood to a less intent red.
In a silent place far removed from the ordinary, in a sea of shattered aspirations, far far away from sandy beaches where people dance in sunsets, you laid in my arms and bled out.
And I wasn’t even there.